Glenoid labral tears represent an important cause of shoulder pain, especially in traumatic settings. Magnetic resonance arthrography (MRA) and computed tomography arthrography(CTA) of the shoulder have been considered comparable as concerns the identification of superior labrum lesions and full thickness rotator cuff tears. Dual energy CT (DECT) has been recently proposed in musculoskeletal imaging. DECT features such as the reduction of metal artifacts in operated shoulders, or the optimized visualization of contrast material injected by choosing the best kV values during post-processing, could increase the...

Patient population This prospective institutional review board-approved study included 26 consecutive patients (14 males and 12 females; mean age of 32.3, range 18–49 years) studied between January 2017 and January 2018. All patients underwent DECT (80 kV and tin filter 150 kV) and MRA the same day. The shoulder joint was distended by using a prefilled sterile syringe including a mixture of iodinate contrast material (Iopamiro 370, Iopamidolo, 3,7 g of iodine, Bracco imaging, Milano), saline (59.5%) and gadoteric acid (gadoteric acid 0,5 mmol/ml, Dotarem,...

Surgery revealed the presence of labral tear in 19/26 patients (73.1%), with 8 tears of antero-inferior labrum (fig 2), 10 tears of superior labrum (fig 3) and 1 tear of posterior labrum. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV and accuracy of DECT arthrography and MRA were 89.5, 100,100, 77.7 and 92.3%, and 94.7, 85.7, 94.7, 85.7 and 92.3 %, respectively. The diagnostic accuracy values are summarized in table 3 (fig 4). By using McNemar test, the difference of accuracy between DECT arthrography and MRA was...

In conclusion, DECTA was comparable to MRA in diagnosing labral tears of the shoulder.